The Kahlil Gibran High School is a Symptom of a Failed Education System

I would like to again compliment Alicia Colon on her courage in confronting the Kahlil Gibran High School controversy. The New York Sun has been on the forefront of a wide range of difficult battles, to include Kahlil Gibran. The fact that the MSM and left wing activists have attacked Ms. Colon is a tribute to her courage and good judgment.

The Kahlil Gibran High School is a symptom of the Bloomberg administration's incompetent schools administration. In today's schools, students are no longer competently taught to read, write and do arithmetic. Instead, they are taught to identify with their ethnic backgrounds; have high self-esteem; and to hate the United States. The Kahlil Gibran High School is a symptom of the absence of competent education. That the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation have funded the social justice high schools is consistent with Microsoft's stock performance since 2000. Bill Gates fiddles with boondoggles such as the social justice high schools while Microsoft burns.

Parents ought to demand better and more objective outcomes assessment for schools, to include the social justice schools, on up through the college level. Better outcomes assessment would include tracking entering students' and graduates' achievement through objectively normed entry and exit tests. This is already done by the Educational Testing Service and the SATs, but needs to be generalized to elementary, high school, college and graduate levels, with the mean entry (for elementary schools multiple level) and exit results, (including quartiles and standard deviations) tabulated and published publicly per institution to determine whether each school is more or less successful in developing skills.

Furthermore, students' career progress post graduation should be sampled and tracked, and schools evaluated based on subsequent career outcomes, with sample outcomes also publicly published per school. Public revelation of the mean job outcomes such as income, with quartiles and standard deviations of graduates per school is not information that many educators at any level want to make public.

Recently, Candace de Russy, some other associates and I discussed the possibility of a conference to discuss emerging fiduciary duties for university trustees. The Sun has done an excellent job of bringing related problems to light, for example when the Sun published pictures of the Columbia trustees on its editorial page.

My hope is that part of this conference would involve consideration of trustees' duty to demand assessment in order to understand institutional performance, just as directors of corporations are expected to demand accurate financial data. That the former board of education, Mayor Bloomberg, schools chancellor and the colleges have not implemented such a system convinces me that there are major gaps in governance and management. This spills over into frivolous abuses such as likely occur at the social justice high schools.

Useful Presentation on Israel

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/

The above is a useful presentation on Israel that is well worth watching. It summarizes and refutes the left's pro-terrorist propaganda.

Why a Bloomberg Presidential Run Will Help Republicans (or else conservatives are very dumb)

There has been debate about whether a Bloomberg presidential run would help the Democrats or Republicans. Unless conservatives are very dumb, Bloomberg will help the Republicans. The argument that Bloomberg will help Democrats because the conservatives and libertarians have been frustrated with President Bush involves an odd logic. It is like saying: "I opposed fascism and Mussolini, so I voted for Hitler" or "I disagree with Norman Thomas because I dislike government, so I voted for Gus Hall." As well: "I disliked Eisenhower's spending, so I voted for Stevenson." How about "I thought Landon was too liberal, so I voted for Roosevelt." You can probably think of a few more examples.

I doubt that conservatives will support him, unless they are very dumb. They would have to believe the media claims of Bloomberg's being a good manager. But conservatives are the ones who are suspicious of the media, so I doubt they'll fall for it, unless they are very dumb.

The Jacksonian Party versus Michael Bloomberg

The June 19 and 20 New York Sun carried two stories about Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg is leaving the Republican Party and becoming an independent. This has fueled speculation about his running for president. Moreover, Josh Gerstein notes that Mayor Bloomberg accuses the presidential candidates of being shallow. I'm somewhat puzzled, because Mayor Bloomberg's six years in New York City have been as shallow as a sidwalk puddle on 42nd and Vanderbilt.

The Mayor has spent the past six years kowtowing to the city's power brokers. He has busied himself with restaurant menus, west side football stadiums and a long range vision statement that mimics the failed ideas of Robert Moses. While he has harassed small business, he has catered to billionaire developers. During his tenure, city government has been bloated, New York City's taxes inflated, and the divisions between rich and poor sharp as ever.

If Mayor Bloomberg were elected president, real estate prices in Peoria would follow New York's. Private use eminent domain would mushroom. Developers could blight Peoria with tasteless super-projects. European multi-millionaires would dominate Peoria's condo market. Native Peorians would have to move to Mexico. Apartments would be too expensive.

Contrast Mayor Bloomberg's shallow ideas with those of blogger AJacksonian. In "Warnings of a Founding Generation" AJacksonian points out that Yates and Lansing were already concerned, back in 1787, that a federal government would be too powerful. This came to pass in the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, the 1914 Harrison Act, and similar laws which the Progressives advocated. This also came to pass, in AJacksonian's view, from the 1913 Sixteenth Amendment, which gave Congress the power to establish an income tax. It also came to pass via Public Law 62-5, which in 1913 set the number of elected Congressmen to 435. This, in AJacksonian's view, has led to special interest pandering. AJacksonian points out that Yates and Lansing's fears came to pass because of Wilsonian progressivism. The fear of narcotics as expressed in the Harrison Act was used to expand state power. The views of founders, such as the Federal Farmer, were that taxation and expansion of government would lead to corruption. Government cannot be representative because the members of Congress are too few in number. Gerrymandering has led to the decline of democracy. "Congress...no longer acts in the interests OF the Will of the People...Today we now have Congressional Representatives who are more interested in securing funds and power than they are in actually having good government or being a fair representative of the People of the Nation."

In one blog, I learn a considerable amount from AJacksonian. In six years of Mayor Bloomberg's mayoralty, I learn only that the second-rate can become very rich.

AJacksonian has founded a Jacksonian Party, and AJacksonian seems to be the only serious candidate out there.